Category: 2022 12 New Zealand
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A spotless windshield, a canopy and falling water.
Today we picked up our rental car. Even knowing what to expect, it was quite a shock seeing the steering wheel on the wrong side of the car. It took great focus from both of us to drive without causing an accident, but we succeeded. Having said that, I kept up long-established tourist tradition of…
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Dense greenery, massive trees and titanium sand.
We did a tour of a small bit of the Waitakere Ranges Regional Park (directly west of Auckland) before making our way down to Piha Beach. It was all breathtaking, to say the least. The first stop was the Arataki Visitor Centre, perched high on a cliff/slope and looking south across Manukau Harbour (the west…
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Oregon near Auckland.
So my wife said, “Let’s do the hop on hop off bus on Waiheke Island. We’ll just walk on over to the ferry terminal on the quay, catch the boat over and have an easy day.” Uh huh. 19.4k ‘Bernie-sized’ steps (in case you are keeping track Heather), 300 stairs and 12.4 km later we…
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Caves and maggots.
Our second stop was at the Waitomo Glowworm Caves. Turns out they aren’t worms; they are maggots with web-like threads hanging out of their mouths. The threads hang down about 6″ to a foot, and catch bugs that are attracted to the bioluminescence they create in the pitch-black dark. They look like stars in the…
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Hobbits & holes.
So, we went full-tourist today, absent the flowered shirt, camera around the neck and knee-high socks with sandals. We had a full day on the bus – our first stop was the village of Hobbiton in “The Shire”. The pamphlet had a wonderful, concise summary: The vistas were truly incredible. They chose the location well.…
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Tamaki Makau Rau
The Maori name for Auckland (noted above) is the much more interesting version. It means ‘isthmus of one thousand lovers’. Now I wanna know who Isthmus was. I think they mistranslated it. It really means ‘isthmus with no flat ground’, or ‘turbocharged Bernie-time’. According to Bernie’s iWatch, she had over 26k steps today, spread over…
63 and free 